Phase difference film used for liquid crystal displays and the like is conventionally made of a polymer film which is stretched in certain directions to orient the main chains of the polymer in these directions so that the polymer film exhibits refractive index anisotropy.
According to this method, the polymer film can be provided with refractive index anisotropy with relative ease; the method was excellent in that it enabled easy formation of phase difference films.
However, this method only allows fabrication of phase difference films in which the main chains of polymer are oriented in the directions of stretch, and therefore the problem was that the orientation of resultant phase difference films was limited only to directions parallel to the surface of the phase difference film.
Meanwhile, phase difference films having vertical polymer orientation relative to the surface, or various other orientation directions, are now in demand; the problem with the above method for obtaining phase difference films by stretching polymer films is that it cannot meet such demand because of its little freedom in setting orientation direction.
In a multi-domain type liquid crystal display element, for example, in which each unit cell is divided into a plurality of regions with different directions of liquid crystal directors, optical compensation with the conventional phase difference film was, while favorable in some regions, not necessarily satisfactory in other regions.